197 Mich. 404 | Mich. | 1917
The defendant was convicted in the recorder’s court of the city of Detroit upon a complaint which charged:
That the defendant on the 29th day of December, 1916, did “then and there unlawfully and wilfully allow a nuisance to exist on said premises, consisting of the operation of a crane for the loading and unloading of cars, which operation caused a loud and continuous noise, to the serious annoyance of the neighborhood.”
The plea was not guilty, and the trial was by jury.
An idea of the location of the crane with reference to the surrounding property can be obtained from the annexed sketch of the locality.
It shows roughly the roundhouse, machine shop, crane, and tracks, and the residences of each one of the people complaining. The crane itself is represented by an oblong figure just northerly of the rail-, road tracks and westerly of Harbaugh avenue just south of Cedar street. Westerly of the crane appears another parallelogram representing a machine shop, storeroom, boiler room, and certain offices. Still westerly of the machine shop, but close thereto, is the Detroit roundhouse of the Wabash Railway Company, devoted to the customary use to which a railroad roundhouse is put. This roundhouse is continually in active operation, and the crane is located adjoining thereto, so that the loading can be accomplished when necessary on incoming and outgoing locomotives at a
It further appears that the whole territory surrounding the location of the crane is a network, of railroad tracks, and in this respect has not changed for a period of 30 years or more. South of the roundhouse and crane are five tracks outside of the tracks that are used in connection with the roundhouse proper, and all of the Wabash and Pere Marquette trains entering the city pass this point; the Delray station of these two roads being just across the tracks to the
The trial judge in a carefully stated charge submitted to the jury the question as to what was the preponderating character of the neighborhood, whether it was residential in character,, and instructed them that unless they found it was of that character, so as not to make the noise of the operation of the crane one of the incidents of a manufacturing or a like district, their verdict would, be not guilty.
A careful examination of this record and of the evidence offered on the trial satisfies us that the court erred in submitting this question to the jury and should have directed a verdict for the defendant as requested by it on the ground that under the undisputed proofs the preponderating character of this neighborhood is not residential, but that it is a railroad terminal, and was such at thé time that the people now living there sought the locality in which
We are satisfied that the operation of the crane by day and night was made necessary by the demand of the public upon the facilities of the railroad, and that under these circumstances it cannot be said that a public nuisance was.created.
Being of the opinion, as before stated, that the trial judge should have directed a verdict for the defendant, the judgment will be reversed, and no new trial granted.